ECONOMY: Unemployment rates rise as holiday workers leave payrolls

Unemployment rates rose slightly in January in San Diego and Riverside counties as employers shed holiday workers, according to state figures released Friday.

The data, from the state's Employment Development Department and U.S. Labor Department, underscored the continuing difficulty of employers in sustaining strong job growth as the regional economy slowly recovers from the worst shakeout in decades.

Economists said the slight rise in unemployment in January came as no surprise, because it followed a hiring binge during the holidays that many had forecast, with many retailers and others casting off temporary workers after shopping and post-holiday sales ended.

San Diego County's unemployment rose to an unadjusted 9.3 percent in January, up from a revised 9 percent in December, and below the year-ago estimate of 10.5 percent.

Riverside County's unemployment rate was 12.5 percent in January, up from a revised 12.4 percent the prior month, and sharply lower than the year-ago estimate of 14.2 percent.

The rise in unemployment was partly from sectors such as retail stores, transportation and tourism, where employment had been boosted by seasonal hiring for the holidays, said Lynn Reaser, chief economist for Point Loma Nazarene University.

EDD reported 22,500 jobs were lost in San Diego County in January, while an estimated 12,900 disappeared in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The EDD couldn't break out the exact number of jobs that were lost in January in Riverside County because it typically reports the figures as part of a region called the Inland Empire.

County figures are not adjusted for seasonal hiring patterns, while state and national figures are. However, Reaser said the loss of 22,500 jobs in San Diego County was really a "muted" 3,200 jobs if adjusted for the typical loss of holiday hires.

The February jobs figures won't be released for California and local counties until March 23, as economists with the EDD benchmark their data against tax data submitted by businesses over the first three months of 2011, according to EDD spokesman Michael Goss.

The EDD rejiggers the jobs data annually ---- a process taking place now, which will be reflected in the jobs data over the next few months, Goss said.

Still, Reaser said that recent data revisions were "somewhat disappointing."

"The annual revisions show that California and San Diego County added more jobs in 2010 than earlier estimated and fewer in 2011," Reaser said.

For San Diego County, the previous gain reported for 2010 was 5,200 jobs. This was doubled to 10,400, she said. In contrast, the 2011 figure was cut in half from about 27,000 jobs to 12,000.

Jodi Chavez, senior vice president of Ajilon Professional Staffing, who oversees hiring practices on the West Coast, senses that the EDD figures aren't telling the entire story.

A year ago, said Chavez, businesses were hiring workers temporarily for three to six months, and then dropping them. In recent months, she's seeing companies convert temporary workers to permanent status in about half the time after they're hired temporarily.

"The unemployment numbers aren't mirroring what I see in the market," Chavez added. "As far as hiring, we are seeing more and more companies hiring temporary workers, as well as permanent ones in San Diego County, particularly in North County."

"There is more confidence in hiring," said Chavez, who sees rising gas prices as the only threat that might derail the hiring that her firm sees. "Gas is a factor."

In Southwest Riverside County, the cities of Murrieta and Temecula saw a mixed job picture in January.

Murrieta had an estimated unemployment rate of 8.3 percent while Temecula stood at 8.5 percent, according to the EDD. Murrieta saw its unemployment rate tick slightly higher from an adjusted 8.2 percent in December, while Temecula's rate held unchanged from December.

Temecula has been struggling to cope with layoffs from one of its biggest employers.

In late January, Abbott Laboratories laid off 700 employees, nearly 300 of them at its Temecula plant, as part of restructuring efforts in its medical device and diagnostic businesses.

The Temecula plant, which employed about 3,000 people before the layoffs, makes coronary stents, which are small metal mesh tubes that prop open blocked blood vessels in the heart. Several hundred more employees at the Temecula plant will be laid off by the end of 2012.

California's unemployment rate fell to 10.9 percent in January, the first time that it has dipped below 11 percent since April 2009, according to the EDD. The jobless rate was three-tenths of a percentage point down from December's adjusted rate of 11.2 percent.

January was the fifth consecutive month in which the rate has dropped.

The job picture is brightening nationally as well. In February, the Labor Department's monthly jobs report showed 227,000 new jobs were created, with the unemployment rate holding steady at 8.3 percent, effectively unchanged from the previous two months.